Nine boxes of Decware goodness just showed up at my office: six boxes for the speakers, and three containing the pairs of the grille-tops, spikes and capacitors/resistors. In person, this group is bigger than they seemed in the abstract. And yes, they appear packed for a shuttle launch. Bob's packaging appears designed to laugh at UPS!

Lon, or anyone else, what is the best way to empty the box? Is it safe to open it at the top, and then tip it over and slide the styrofoam case out?

Congrats, Pale. Let them time to sound right. Don't judge them until a 300 aprox. hrs of break-in or so. I even thought I would have to return them back. Glad I didn't. Nevertheless, I find them a bit "shouty" and probably is due to my pair specifically. Bob and I are dealing with it.

Their effortless and charming presentation, very natural tonal balance, articulation and imaging are top notch in my opinion. Nicely detailed too. You are gonna love that. ;)

No worries here. In fact, I just gave Bob my first listening impressions today with just two pairs installed. I don't perceive mine as shouty at all. First impression, running on my mid-fi home theater Denon:

1. Amazing soundstage and imagery. I have an irregular room, with very high ceilings, multiple level of windows, and plenty of both bright and dampened walls. The room is not a box, open on all sides into other rooms, stairwells and entry ways. Soundstage in all directions. Large chorale works are amazing.

2. Conversely, instrument separation, and stability, is rock solid. When the drum kit on Moonlight Acoustica first appears, it comes out of nowhere and stays right where it appears.

4. Bass is tight, but still a touch light. We'll see how that plays out. I unhooked my sub, and will live without it for a while. Bob and I are discussing a WO32, but I believe most music won't require it, though HT will require something.

5. Sound is still a bit thin, mostly I think due to the Denon. It can only get better, and even now, I have not experienced fatigue.

Alright! Glad you got to hear a pair finally! They're just going to keep getting better and better. Give the bass a few more days to bloom, a week or more for the full-blown bass to be there. You're in for such a treat when you get the Ultra and the Torii in play!

Woo -hoo! Glad to hear your system is starting to come together. The major pieces are in place; now it is time to begin the journey of getting it all to work together. There is a word for that -- yeah, it's called synergy. No doubt -- you will have that in spades with all the Decware gear you have on hand. You are blazing trails for the rest of us. We'll hold you to the highest standards -- pressure's on.

Ok, maybe I am kidding. Maybe.

The interesting thing, like Juan mentioned, it to give them time. I know you wrote that you are happy with your first listen but I can't help but thinking, after being so accustomed to the soundstage and imaging on your headphone rig, that sometime won't seem quite "right" to begin with. I remember Lon writing about his transition from the IT Radials with their more conventional front-firing driver.

Thanks M. No worries on either score. My positive reaction on first listening is solely a confirmation tha I am pleased with the first listen, zero buyer's remorse. I fully expect the speakers to change significantly, especially when the Toriis and Ultra are applied.

The most significant change for the next days and weeks is gonna be the bass as Lon mentioned. They are quite sensitive with placement too, a good placement is required. Rotate the speakers pointing a bit out of your ears so that the imaginary direction of the tweeters meet and cross around 4 feet back of your head or something like that depending on the distance and your room. So don't let the tweeters looking at you like a perfect triangle.

And of course as you know, don't place them very near the walls to prevent bloated bass and out of control. The soundstage/imaging is affected due to that as well.

Pale, if you think they sound nice right out of the box, well, the next few months you are gonna be insanely shocked.

Honestly, when I first listen to them they sounded horrible in my point of view.

JA: I tend to set a low expectation framework, especially when I am enthusiastic about a purchase. Sounds contradictory, I suppose. It's my own version of Ben Franklin's "I am a pessimist, so that I am often pleasantly surprised." I didn't expect the ERRs to blow me away, and so their relative smoothness and quickness were quite pleasant to hear. And while the imagery and sound staging are hyped a bit much on the web page, I was not prepared for just how good they are out of the box on mediocre equipment. Knowing they are going to bloom is a real reward. "Horrible"? I suppose, depending on one's reference point, that could be true, but not in my case. I have spent way more for a pair of speakers than I did for all three pairs of ERRs (and what I will likely spend on the WO32), and gotten less.

You'll appreciate the humor here Lon: my Ultra and first Torii are ready to insert in the system, but I have no ICs! I have been running off HDMI here at home for long enough that all I have for ICs are a few junk Radio Shack cables, maybe an old Monster, and they all look like they have oxidized. I don't even want to let their "syphilitic white trash selves" near my Decware. So, I may have to break down and buy some cheap ICs to tide me over until my Decwares are built.

Greg, if interested I could send you a few pair as loaners,I have available a set of the the "pre-Silver Reference" Decware ics, a pair of TARA Labs Reference and a pair of Audioquest "Mamba II". . . Let me know. You can PM me if you'd like. I'd get them in the mail express this afternoon if you'd like.

Pale, I agree with you. I think it is hyped on the webpage, specially in terms of room treatment. These speakers need a really good sounding room like a conventional speaker to sound at their best. Nevertheless, they are quite easier to set up to sound right, specially in soundstage and stable imaging, that is absolute true and I agree with that.

You've intrigued me, Pale. Which were those expensive speakers you owned for much more? Just curiosity.

Pale, I agree with you. I think it is hyped on the webpage, specially in terms of room treatment. These speakers need a really good sounding room

From the website:

Imagine not having to worry about exactly where you place the speakers.

And best of all the Decware Radials will do it in virtually ALL rooms, large or small, including yours and without additional room treatments!

So, how much hyperbole are we really talking about? I am curious because Steve was really taken to task recently over at another web site about over-the-top narratives on his web site.

I was really beginning to zero in on the ERRs, partially because I can't treat my listening room too much and also because of claims that they worked pretty well near walls. I can't have a speaker pulled too far out into the room -- maybe 18 - 24 inches.

One thing unclear to me, Greg, is if you plan to listen to two-channel music or if this will be strictly (or mostly) HT and maybe multi-channel music?

Juan -- Is it harder to integrate multiple pairs of omni speakers rather than a single pair?

M, I want to be clear: I think the ERRs are everything they are hyped to be. Most things in life do not live up to their hype. Sex, well, let's be honest, sex lives up to its hype. And so do the ERRs, at least IMHO. I am absolutely thrilled with the speakers, and I haven't really put them in harness yet.

My wife, who has younger ears with no tinnitus, thinks they are stunning. While they are of course affected by the room and their placement in it, I find they have a huge sweet spot, and are less affected by such factors than other speakers I have heard.

Order a pair, you will fall in love. I only wish I had two separate rooms for HT and audio. If I did, I would have ordered 4 pairs of ERRs.

P.S. Juan, I have owned a number of more expensive speakers, including Acoustats, Ohms, Infinity, Martin Logans, Carver Amazing, Quads, and Jack Caldwell ribbons ( my faves until now).

Glad you're really enjoying the ERRs so far. I agree that they're top notch. I just have become addicted to the Radial sound and would keep buying Decware or Turning Point Audio designs if I have the choice.

Mine have been sounding better and better as the weeks go by. Amazing me even now when I should be used to them!

Mac5u, the hyperbole is a bit deserved, not totally, but well. You will need treatment for the bass and highs as any other boxy speaker to have very great sound, that is unavoidable. Are the ERR's better for the average room? I'd say yes, of course, in terms of soundstage/imaging only.

I don't have multiple set of omni's but It seems to be the best option and far easier to set up multiple speakers to create an ultimate HT though. It's what Pale has done. Just having a single pair I can perceive that these speakers must be extremely terrific in a surround theater set up (4.0 or 5.0). The location and 3D sound in a movie must be thrilling.

As Pale says, order a pair, don't worry. You have to know that the sound is very laid back. The sound is never coming to you, never in your face. It's all there and deep between the speakers, behind the speakers, rendered ambient sound coming from everywhere (sometimes even behind you). It's a bit rare at the beginning, you will understand easier the instrument placement if you close your eyes. No matter if you approach to the speakers very near, the sound is never in your face and claustrophobic.

They are warm and don't expect them to have tilted-up highs, just the opposite. The highs are flat and correct, but I think they could be a little more extended, I perceive them to be a bit rolled off in the very top end. I don't mean they can't go very very high, I just mean that some very high sounds need more dBs in that range. That is my own perception.

Pale, having owned those hi-end brands tells a lot about the high value of Decware. A very good feeling to say the least.

I think Juan hits it on the head here. As you can tell from some of my speaker choices, I am a big fan of planars. I love the transient response, and something about ribbons in particular really satisfies me. Now, at my age, I probably could not discern the extent of the rolloff. When I check my hearing, I can tell that I am rolling off at about 16-17k.

I have my ERRs set up so that unless you choose to move a chair and plop yourself right in front of the tweeter, the ribbons are all slightly off angle to all the major listening positions in the room. This probably contributes to a slight "softness" on some of the highs. I think I will get a better sense of just how much once the Ultra is plugged in, and I can switch back and forth between 2-channel and multi-channel. It is interesting to watch/listen to Blu-Ray discs like Moonlight Acoustica and Goldberg Acoustica. Those discs give you a choice between "stage" and "audience" listening positions. And it does make quite a difference. The visual cues provided by the disc inform me that the ERR soundstage rendition is very credible. Moving the speakers so the tweeters are more directionally focused at the listener does not cause shoutiness, or over-emphasis of treble, but it does seem to slightly affect instrument location, without increasing or decreasing "air."

Thanks, JA. I should have written above that I realize there isn't a single pair of speakers ever made that could not benefit from some form of room treatment. For me, the issue has always been how much, and to that end, omnis -- Decware, Ohms, etc. have always appealed to me because I think I value imaging and soundstaging at least as much as I value rich mids and good bass.

I rarely listen for extended periods in any sweet spot so the diffuse-sounding nature of the omni is very desirable.

JA -- what kind of music and listening levels are typical for you? How do they sound at either low volumes or really high volumes?

So yes, I need to try a pair. Ideally, I can have both Decware and Ohms concurrently to compare side-by-side. The difficulty in that scenario is the power requirements for those two are significantly different. While Ohms can probably be driven fairly well with tubes, they really deliver when feed high current, or so I have read. So maybe it will come down to a choice of amplification?

PR, what version of Ohms did you own? As always, I anticipate reading about how your multi-ERR/Zen Ultra story unfolds.

My taste in music is very wide except for mainstream popular music. Rock, blues, classical, jazz, symphony orchestra, ...

My typical listening levels are 80 dBs (the average) and also very satisfying low levels. You know, my hearing is really really good, both in wide range and dynamically. I even surpass above the maximum threshold of 0dB by 5dB at 4kHz (left ear) and 2kHz (right ear).

I think live music is not as good sometimes with these speakers. Because of the ERR's have a kind of "diffuse" sound, adding more reverb and stuff typically found in live records don't work as good as studio records. OF COURSE, this is due to the involved acoustics added of our room as well. To enjoy live recordings, a good treated room is, unfortunately, more important than playing studio recordings.

"I rarely listen for extended periods in any sweet spot so the diffuse-sounding nature of the omni is very desirable"

MMMmm, no. This speakers, at least in my opinion, must be listened in the sweet pot to enjoy the tweeter and then high frequencies. You must sit down to do that or at least bend the tweeters if you stand up (bending these tweeters are not practical and easy) . It's wide in the horizontal plane, but it's very limited in the vertical axis. Even in the horizontal axis it starts to roll-off when it is a little off-axis. (Pale mentioned it above). And because these tweeters produce the highest registers soft and quiet in my experience, most probably you would want quite more highs most of the time.

The restriction of the ribbon tweeter in the vertical plane is a good thing, most probably due to the need to avoid interaction between the tweeter and the radial membrane and the reflections in ceiling and floor.

I also think these speakers sound better at low level SPL. Hehe, well, that is most probably because of the handicap of room acoustics, amplifier, speaker distortion, auto-defense of our ears called stapedius reflex) and so on. The typical.

I just hate it!! Instead, in spanish we use "in" (translation: "en") as "in/on/at" for everything. It's the same meaning depending on the context. The use of "on" and "at" is killing me and drives my crazy.

Lon, I see you use the word "amigo" correctly. Sometimes I've seen people saying "mi amigo" (my friend). You know, we don't say "my friend" in conjunction. We say: ¡Hola, amigo!. Just that. ;)

Yes, my girlfriend is a wonderful latina of Mexican hertage (though not a native Spanish speaker, she does speak some Spanish) and one of my very best friends is of Mexican heritage, a wise young-old man who speaks Spanish fluently. I can toss off a few Spanish words and appellations correctly. . .but I can't speak Spanish. Maybe one day I'll learn. My girlfriend talks about learning more Spanish and my learning with her. If only she wouldn't spend 50 to 60 hours a week at work! It's hard to believe she retired once four years ago. . .but was asked to return to her job and stayed away only 30 days!

I love the different sounds of Spanish (depending on the speaker's place of origin). I studied French for years in Africa and when I returned to America, but haven't had a lot of speaking practice in decades, which is a shame, so much of the language has disappeared from my brain. It helps a bit with Spanish, but doesn't help in some instances (for example in French I've always heard "mon ami", not just "ami.") Anyway, I love cultural diversity. Learning other languages and customs and manners is very appealing to me.

Juan, whose English seems better than most I run into for whom it is nominally their first language, is IMHO quite correct. While imaging is very apparent even while I move around the room, there are decided differences in the vertical plane as one moves.

Although I think the ERRs do well loud, both my younger daughters and I noticed that in 4.0 mode, they could easily get overpowering. That is a lot of sound. Some of that I suspect is the harshness of the Denon amp they are revealing. But all of us agreed for example, that the sound produced on the Dire Straits Brothers in Arms DVD-A was more desirable in 5.1 [but hearing 4.0] than 2.0. The immersion can be quite seductive. The title cut is simply amazing.

Today, i plan to listen to the DVD-A of Jackson Browne's Running on Empty. I love this disc, and the performances on it have some sentimental attachments. But it is also well recorded, and I plan to test Juan's view that live recordings don't sound as good with the radial approach. He may be right, though the classical chorale works I have listened to so far—Verdi's Requiem, Mozart's Requiem, and Beethoven's 9th—have been quite extraordinary.

With any luck, I may get the Torii and the Ultra into the front end of the system as well.

Greg, it may be the Denon but your ERRs are going to need about 300 hours total to begin to sound as treble-grain-free as they can be.

Still, yeah, at very high volumes I imagine in a quartet the ERRs could be very over-powering. Still, working with resistors you could get them pretty much just right.

I haven't found there to be a big difference between live and recorded material, though much of the live material I listen to is very simply recorded, a lot of unofficial recordings with just one or two microphones and little "production". . . that may be a factor.

I think you make a good point regarding the classification of live recordings. The Cowboy Junkies' Trinity disc, for example, and the Tone Pearls Piano Music in a Church are elegantly simple recording processes.

But the discussion about the role of diffuse speaker sound in reproducing recordings that have already captured sound reverberation reminds me a bit of those tiresome Bose/anti-Bose debates. I have no dog in that hunt, but one recurrent theme was that very issue: why attempt to exaggerate soundstage through speaker reflections, when the soundstage was already in the material? Of course, some people like the Bose effect, and I am certainly not going to begrudge them (never understood the desire to diminish what another person likes, so long as it's not illegal or dangerous to children).

The radial approach is quite different from the reflective approach, of course. They are not even in the same category—though they share the similarity of what I might call "anti-beaminess"—but the notion that the radial approach might be less or "differently" effective on certain live recordings is an interesting one.

I just want to warn you. Spanish is quite difficult, more than english. We have a lot of conjugation of the verbs. English is extremely easy on this. The past of a regular verb is just by adding "ed". The articles, the adjectives, the verbs, ... they include gender female or male, if it is singular or plural. We can omit speaking an article "She, he or the" in a sentence because the rest contain all the info of the gender and number and who we are talking about.

A very simple example of this magnitude is the article "the": we have "la/el/lo/los/las". It contains the gender and number of the following name. Contrary to english, things have gender too, not only persons. Like french or german. So if you learnt french while ago as I did (I did it at school for a few years) you know what I am talking about.

Now I am gonna see what I can do with german. I hope to learn a lot.

"I love the different sounds of Spanish (depending on the speaker's place of origin)"

hehe, the spanish of Spain is quite different sounding from the spanish of America. They have variants, written mistakes and weird words that almost destroy the original language we shared to them, depending on the place, of course. It sounds quite weird to us as well. We speak the real orthodox spanish (the original), which the margin of difference is quite higher than the difference between british english (the origin) and american english. Yes, british has a different accent and certain different words but to me it's quite similar overall compared to american. American english sounds more natural than british in my opinion. I hate trying to follow the very hardest british accents of a speech when the plosive sounds are exaggerated, very short vowels and very quick decays. On the contrary, the hardest american accent with very nasal sound is not as difficult to the ears.

Of course I know that american english has multiple of different accents, like in the UK, like in Spain and like in Latin America. For instance, scottish has a bit similar accent to the spanish of Spain.

Apart from that, It's sad that people generalize so much with cultures and promote racism. For the color of the skin, eyes, facial features,...

I've a little knowledge that even there's the ignorance that "spanish" or hispanic means automatically "a bad amerindian guy with dark skin" or so. Because that is far from the truth. OK, generally Central America is well know to have conservative original amerindian genetics (darker skin and indian facial characteristics). There's way less genetic mix of Spain. Then, there is south (Argentina), white skinned, very occidental facial characteristics, very accentuated colonization mainly by Italy and Spain. Therefore, there's also blue/green eyed, blond/brown haired genetics. This is just an example in general.

My cousin and I, for example, are night and day. He is black haired, brown skinned, almost black eyed. I am blue/green eyed, dark/brown haired with a hint of blond, white skinned. When I was a very young child a little blond haired. It is simply that my father is completely blond and my mother changes in the hair to dark only. Past origin similitudes are identical (to my knowledge).In general, we are like italians, there's blond genetics of central europeans, there's muslims genetics too, blah, blah, blah.

Anyway. The point is that it's so wrong to generalize and judge people by their skin. What matters is the person itself. I know a cuban guy (african genetics) that is much more educated and culturalized (geography, languages, history, ...) than many more people I'd like to count.

Apart from that, I don't know why the hell you name it soccer instead of football. You know, american football is played mainly by using the hands to take the ball, contrary to "soccer", played by the feet literally in every sense of the word, that's football, man, not soccer. Rugby makes more sense than football, hehe.

Apart from that super offtopic:

My experience with live recordings have been that. It depends on the own room too. The ideal situation is just hearing the spacial info where the recording was recorded. Add your room acoustics and you just destroy it. Recordings are recorded differently so some live ones sounds just great. Others, like this famous one, Jazz at the Pawnshop, I find it weird and lacks coherency, for example:

As an example, the Mike Oldfield's Music of Spheres both Live and studio sounds great:

Thanks for all that information. Languages are fascinating. As I said I learned French first, in Africa, and then at the same time I learned a basic knowledge of Amharic, the official language in Ethiopia. When we moved to Swaziland I learned a bit of SiSwati, the language there, and also was force-fed Latin, as I was in an English-style boarding-school and everyone there had had Latin for several years and the school headmaster was my Latin teacher. I had no choice but to cover three years of Latin in one! I did well with it, but again much of it is gone as I did not use it afterwards at all. But it has helped me with other language problems.

I have heard different accents in Spanish and agree that there are some extreme differences. And I know about the cultural and genetic differences too. I've noticed among persons of Mexican descent here in Texas that sometimes there is discrimination among them of the darkest, most "Indian" of them, by the fairest of them, which is so sad, and so sad especially because there are those "Anglos" (thankfully few) who hate them all, whether fair and "Spanish" or darker. I grew up in the fifties and up to mid-sixties in inner city Philadelphia and saw racism between whites and blacks and hispanics and was appalled, because I was fortunate to be raised by very loving and kind people who felt we were all the same, and taught me that, and showed me that they believed that. Racism just makes me ill, as it is so against my nature.

Juan, your English is excellent! Thanks for sharing all this with me. If I can get around to learning Spanish it will be fun, in large part because i will be learning that with my beloved Anadina, my girlfriend, as well.

And one day perhaps I'll be able to add South America to the list of continents I've visited. So far I've lived in Africa (for nearly six years) and visited Europe. I'd love to go to Brazil because I have enjoyed and studied music from there for years, and met some interesting people from there,* and I'd love to go to Argentina because I have met some WONDERFUL people from there, and I'd love to go to Paraguay because my youngest uncle lived there a few years and told me the most marvelous stories, and to Chile, because my late wife spent months there (up to and including the revolutionary period in '73!) as a sort of "exchange" student and it was one of the most important periods of her life; she is the only girl child of her parents, and in Chile she stayed with a family with five daughters and she never forgot how it was to have sisters!

I'm not typing very well this morning so bare with me.

In regards to the live recordings: I don't have any room treatment so that may be a reason why I don't feel that live recordings are particularly compromised. I've never heard the two recordings you have pictured there, so I can't comment on their sound. But I do find that there's plenty of room information on the live recordings that I listen to that seem to come through. They sound pretty natural to me. I love the ERRs. They've really reached into my mind and painted their sonic signature there. Almost any other speaker sounds boxed in and constrained in comparison after years wtih the Radial design.

* In regards to the Brazilians I've met, it's very funny one of them is the wife of a friend of mine. When he began dating her, he told me all about this wonderful exotic woman he was crazy about and I had this idea of this beautiful Brazilian woman that was all wrong! When I met her I discovered she was from a German town in Brazil and she was so fair and blonde-haired and blue-eyed and looked like the girl on the St. Pauli Girl beer bottles. I learned a lot about a different aspect of Brazil talking to her about her family and home town.

I read all this with great interest! Congrats to Pale Rider and your ERR's, please update us when you can with some more pics of them if possible!

I own newer Ohm Walsh CLS driver OW3's with John's newest 3000 series drivers in them. I do love the omni/radial approach very much, so these threads on the ERR's are very good reads.

I find the look of these, especially the cabinetry to be extremely nice, fit and finish look to be of the highest quality. I would love to get a listen to these at some point.

A question that I have is along the lines of amplification. I have older Audio Research gear, none of it tubed at the moment, all solid-state. I am curious if any of you have played the ERR's on solid-state gear and what the general results have been. My gear comprises of CD2 CD player, LS3 preamp, D130 power amplifier, wiring by DH Labs or Audioquest.

My current listening room is actually my living room, which is fairly open and I have good choices as to speaker placement. Room is approx. 15' X 16.5', but is also open to an adjoining kitchen/dining area of 14' X 10'.

I listen to all types of music, jazz, pop, blues, a little classical, prog. rock. Listening levels vary, but not a head-banger!

I do enjoy my Ohm's very much, and realize they aren't the same as the "real-deal" Walsh driver on an A or F, but still they do a lot of things right. Would be interested in anyone's take or comparison of the ERR versus the Ohm's if there are any.

Thanks for your time, I have enjoyed the forum here. Enjoy the music, Tim

Welcome aboard! Always nice to see another radial fan. I am afraid I won't be a good comparison point, because it has been a long time since I had my Ohms. But I do believe Steve and Bob are on to something with the ERR driver structure. Sound is very open and transparent. As you may have read here, I first listened to the ERRs through my Denon receiver, and was struck by how good they sounded. Yes, the Denon sounded flat, etched, but detail was well-presented, and soundstage was pretty good in 2 dimensions. In one sense, the ERRs are quite "forgiving," but as you put better stuff on them, they will show it. I had a brief listen on a 2-channel output from my Oppo into the first Torii directly, and it was quite extraordinary. My second Torii arrived yesterday, and my Zracks are on the way [I literally have no place to put this stuff safely]. Once I get the racks, and everything else set up, I will report back. The plasma comes off the cabinet this weekend, and on to the wall. That will mean I have credenza style cabinet to at least place the amps until the racks come in. Until then, I won't bother with center channel.

P.S. Fit & finish are superb. They are lovely. Bob's approach to shipping can only be described as "best practice."

Thanks for those that have replied, all interesting. From a construction point of view on the ERR's, is the bottom of the cabinet ported in between the plinth? What is in the cabinet-stuffing or is it open, just curious. These just look like another great design, and I am really going to have to take a listen to a pair at some point.

I do love my Ohm's too, the styling is also a thing that I like and the ERR cabinets look very good too. Just a very timeless styling in my opinion, beats the typical boxes.

Has anyone else used these with solid state gear? I sure wouldn't be opposed to going tube at some point, but the ERR's would more than likely come first if I did like them. I have enjoyed my ARC gear for a long time and really am in no hurry to change that part of the system. Will continue to read and watch this forum.

I wanted to add to the great information that Pale Rider gave about the ERRs, and that I agree with, with just a bit of info about solid state amplification. I haven't yet tried this with the ERRs, but with my RL2s (an ERR predecessor) I sometimes ran a Proton 50 watt "Power Envelope" amp just to keep that amp "supple" over time. This isn't a great amp like an AR but not a bad one, pretty even tonal balance. They really light up the RL2s, quite an energetic and open sound. I bet the ERRs would work just fine.

Lon, your Proton brought back some very fond Proton and NAD memories. Well made, high value equipment. Considering the price range, they did very nice work with solid state. I was especially fond of my NAD FM tuner.

My 84ZS shipped today. I am closing in on bringing it all together. I have been breaking the Ultra in with the same tubes Steve specifies, but with NOS ones that I bought specifically for it. In the "back row," that means NOS Sylvania 0A3 tubes, that glow a very nice soft orange. Just for fun, I lined up an 0A3, 0B3, 0C3, and 0D3. Pretty slick. My daughters voted in favor of the fairly bright purple 0C3. Perhaps I will try out a full quad. I have some nice Raytheon JAN 0C3s.

PR, with the plasma going on the wall, what direction will the tweeters on the dual center speakers face: Toward the wall or out into the room? If the plasma is up high enough, facing the tweeters toward the wall should work well enough. It will be interesting to see how this works out.

Well, today was the day. I got the plasma on the wall, and while my ZenStyx and ICs have not arrived yet, I went ahead and hooked the Ultra and the first Torii up to the Oppo. OMFG.

We (my two younger daughters and I) started out with Nina Simone's Feeling Good, followed by Thrice's The Artist in the Ambulance, Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill, and then Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms. At some point during Thrice, something opened up and the bottom fell out. Or in. Okay Bob, I surrender, on music, a subwoofer is superfluous. Even my daughters asked "what just happened?" This combo produces tight, well-defined, extremely fast bass. So, then it was time for the 1812, Verdi's Requiem, and Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven off the How the West Was Won DVD-Audio. Just effin' wow. Have some hum to deal with when there is no signal, though it is unnoticeable during music.

Even more compelling is the depth. This must be what Steve means when he talks about holographic imaging. That and the detail. On The Man's Too Strong, you can hear Knopfler's fingers on the strings of his guitar quite distinct from the music. When it's so good your kids can tell it's better than what was playing before, you know you are on to something.

Solved my hum issues. My amp is dead quiet but, heh, my cheap sh!t zip speaker cord and the tangle of wires around them are not. Once the racks and cables are here, I expect to have even fewer problems and more grins.

How many ERRs are talking about at this point? Did you walk around the room? How would you describe the image height? What about midrange/treble response? How far apart are the speakers? Distance from the wall?

Sorry -- I mentioned I was going to live vicariously through your experience.